FEO, September 3, 2026, Vol 7, Issue 26
Each mayoral candidate has been asked the same questions and given the same opportunity to respond within the same word limit. Candidate submissions are not edited by the Observer, other than for basic formatting where necessary.
Access to Health Care.
The Question:
The loss of Fort Erie’s hospital and the reduction of urgent-care services have left many residents questioning how our community reached this point, particularly as a new hospital moves forward in Niagara Falls. If elected mayor, what do you believe should have been done differently to prevent Fort Erie from losing these services, and what, if anything, can realistically be done now to restore or improve access to emergency and urgent health care in our community? What specific steps would you take with Niagara Health and the provincial government to make that happen?
HEALTH CARE
Fort Erie residents are right to be concerned about our health care. Fort Erie should never have been left without a clear, sustainable plan for local emergency and urgent care. Before services were reduced or eliminated, Niagara Health and the Province should have established how residents would continue to receive timely care close to home, with the staffing and funding needed to support it.
Fort Erie has fought the loss of services for decades through public rallies, petitions, meetings with Ministers of Health and repeated representations to Niagara Health. While not successful in preventing reductions and closures, those actions demonstrated how strongly this community values local health care.
The immediate priority is to protect and strengthen the services that remain at Douglas Memorial and to secure a permanent health care role for the site beyond 2028. Our Reimagining Douglas Memorial initiative will develop the site as a community health care hub with expanded urgent care, diagnostic imaging, transitional and palliative care beds, primary and allied health services, specialty clinics, Indigenous health services and health care training partnerships. The Town is developing the business case, assessing the facility, meeting with health care providers, community partners and educational institutions, and working with Niagara Health, Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health.
I will continue to press Niagara Health and the Province for three specific commitments: maintain provincial operating funding for urgent care and associated services in Fort Erie beyond 2028; determine whether Niagara Health or another qualified provider will operate those services; and work with the Town on a funded implementation plan for Douglas Memorial.
Municipal government cannot operate a hospital system, but it can organize the community, build the case and insist that provincial decision-makers provide Fort Erie with sustainable local access to care, which our community deserves.
Wayne Redekop
—————————————————————————————————————————-
The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The painful struggle we have faced for almost 20 years now highlights a number of miscalculations in regional healthcare planning, provincial oversight, and also systemic failures of municipal advocacy. It’s an unfortunate fact that Fort Erie healthcare has been squarely in the crosshairs for elimination the entire time.
Our current leadership has engaged in actions such as the threat of withholding $3 million of previously committed funding toward South Niagara Hospital while admonishing the current NHS, calling into question their leadership. Reactions have included NHS representatives resigning from the town committee, citing “belittling and bullying”, and ministry representatives who no longer have time to answer our town leadership calls for meeting requests. Fort Erie has a Peace Bridge, an international train bridge and now a burned bridge we could do without.
The “reimagining” of Douglas Memorial still requires the assistance of NHS and the Provincial Government. Our current leadership’s 4-year strategic plan included a main pillar to recruit local physicians; this has fallen short.
We need provincial funding and support for Urgent Care in Fort Erie; we can’t fund it alone.
I recently met face-to-face with the Minister of Health and secured future talks to get Fort Erie back to the conversation table with the governing parties. I care about our town and am mending the broken-down relationship.
Once elected Mayor, I would work to assemble local medical practitioners to discuss action plans to ensure residents are cared for, and commit to establishing healthcare funding, focusing on doctor recruitment bonuses and operating subsidies. Utilizing municipal tools such as housing assistance, clinic space, and tax incentives to attract family physicians and nurse practitioners who can staff the Urgent Care Centre.
Tom Insinna
—————————————————————————————————————————–
WHO medical standard: 4.45 medical workers per 1,000 people, 40 years ago, per township China with a few thousand people have had comprehensive hospital, villages with a few hundred people still had “family doctors”, Fort Erie’s hospital was already established with population only 2,383 in 1931, Now 38,000, who harm it shut down?!
Reference disclosure: potential reason is so corrupt that would rather harm everyone health, medical fees the town government should pay are not paid, while hospital construction costs the provincial government should not increase are increased…It will only get worse when they continue lobbying in a vicious cycle of corruption.
The only way is to replace leadership with new methods that treat both symptoms and root cause: I can save about one million dollars per month in taxes and fees, plus start democratic economy to collect order deposits early, organize people to fish and raise fish, creating income immediately, so that money that should be paid can be made up, while money that should not be paid will be waived. As for the excuse of insufficient medical personnel, I will call on members of my scientific team licensed at three major American hospitals to come with righteousness and give relief, and add family physicians, all to be merged into hospital work, so as to raise the level and efficiency of treatment; and medical equipment will be updated by our own efforts, eradicate traditional corruption of high prices in government procurement.
If higher government still don’t agree, I will start administrative litigation. My team also has legal talent and will surely win case, and spare expensive lawyer fees.
After mainly victory, we will also trial win-win medical democracy, open the most attractive life-science treatments, teaching knowledge physiology and medicine since primary school, enable everyone good health and very long life.
Juan Liu
—————————————————————————————————————————–
I believe this community deserves better health care. Since Douglas Memorial Hospital lost its full Emergency Department in 2009, and with the Urgent Care Centre now reduced to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., residents of Fort Erie have been forced to travel outside our town for care while a new hospital rises in Niagara Falls.
I will push Niagara Health to restore 24/7 urgent care at Douglas Memorial before its scheduled closure in 2028. Furthermore, I believe walk – in clinics and pharmacies should operate with extended hours so that seniors and families can obtain the prescriptions and medications they need without having to leave Fort Erie.
Together, we can ensure Fort Erie gets more – not less.
Mike Campbell
—————————————————————————————————————————
COMING IN THE SEPT. 17 ISSUE
The Observer will continue its Mayoral Candidates feature in the Sept. 17 issue with a question focused on another important concern facing Fort Erie: Housing and Growth
THE QUESTION:
September 17 – Housing and Growth
Q. Much of the new housing being built is beyond the reach of many
first-time buyers, young families and local workers. How would you, as
mayor, balance the need for more affordable housing with protecting the
character and quality of life that attracted many residents to Fort Erie
in the first place? What types of housing and development would you
prioritize?
WATCH FOR THE CANDIDATES’ RESPONSES IN THE SEPT. 17 FORT ERIE OBSERVER.
CANDIDATE RESPONSES: The responses published on this page have been provided by the candidates and are published as submitted. Candidates were given an opportunity to review and confirm their
responses prior to publication. The Fort Erie Observer has not edited the content, wording, spelling or substance of the responses. The views, opinions, statements, claims and proposals expressed are
those of the individual candidates and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Fort Erie Observer. Candidates are solely responsible for the content of their responses.
